Attitudes continue to trend away from the woman being the one to propose. An Associated Press-WETV poll in 2014, showed that young adults are more likely than their elders to consider it unacceptable for a woman to do the asking.
One of my clients tells me that she and her girlfriends all agree that women are often more ready to marry before their partners, and that they worry that a frank discussion could backfire and lead to rejection.
"I don't want to be the sort of woman that says 'put a ring on it'," one client told me. So regardless of who pops the question, proposals seem to be trending. Just look at YouTube: endless footage of proposals made while sky diving, or producing the ring along with the cornflakes, or posing the question etched in the sky with clever pyrotechnics.
So with everywhere seemingly fizzing over all things love and dating, hearts and marriage, the subject inevitably flows on to what to do with the awkwardness of dealing with the newly broken up.
We know about heartache, and the very significant emotional, cognitive and physical distress break ups usher in.
Questions about how to tell your friends, and when to alter your Facebook status and how to act if you bump into your ex, all get plugged and replayed - an endless reinventing of the wheel.
And as if managing a shattered heart is not enough, this is where shame can come slinking onto the stage.
It's all very well that scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, believe shame is not maladaptive. "It offers us a defence," they say, "and helps us make the best of a bad situation, minimising the effects of damage when it does happen - such as others viewing us badly".
And of course being viewed as valuable by the tribe is intrinsic to survival. But why one should feel shame at a break up is a whole other question. A question which needs a lot more analysis and care than a manufactured response to a marketing challenge from Cadbury with gold wrapped chocolate hearts and rabbits hopping their opportunistic way over the remnants of Valentine's Day stock.
The shame card is a further assault on the broken heart. If you didn't cheat and lie - in which case one would hope that shame finds you - then stashing away 12 pairs of metaphorical silk gloves to hide your status has no place.
Fragility and vulnerability, on the other hand does have a place. Because if you are healthy enough to understand real attachment, then the breaking of it will likely hurt very, very much.
Becoming our true selves without pressure or coercion is a prerequisite to finding contentment in life. "Something is missing","She doesn't know the real me","I only feel half the man I was", are all phrases I hear from couples in the throes of a break up.
It is painful to be let go of, and it hurts to be the one to do the letting go. But blocking our truest and most unmasked self does the most damage where intimate relationships are concerned.
Shakespeare was not wrong when he had Polonious say, "To thine own self be true". In the shattering agony of the broken heart, there is a lot to work through and rewards to be gained.
What is not needed is the siren call to the tabloid headlines of the social group: "How to treat her", "What to say to him", "How to tell her family". Rather than worry about protocol, it would be most helpful of all if friends honoured the courage it takes to navigate through this transition of separation.
Changing your relationship status is an intrepid voyage as old as time itself - and what it means in terms of a challenge exceeds any protocol about when exactly one should update a relationship status on Facebook.
- nzherald.co.nz
